"There is just one plan open to us, and that's to drive her across to the eastward as fast as we can," he said. "We might, perhaps, pick up an Alaska C.C. factory before the provisions quite run out if this breeze and the gear hold up. Failing that, we must try for one of the Western Aleutians."
The others concurred in this, and very fortunately the breeze kept to the west and south, for Wyllard had very grave doubts as to whether he could have thrashed the schooner to windward through a steep head sea. Indeed, on looking back on that voyage and remembering the state of the vessel, it seemed to him that he and his companions had only escaped as by a miracle. In any case, they hove her to one misty evening in a deep inlet behind a promontory, and Wyllard, who sculled up it alone in the growing darkness, badly startled the agent of an A.C.C. factory when he appeared, ragged, haggard, and wet with rain, in the doorway of a big, stove-warmed room.
The agent, however, was, as he admitted, out for business, and when Wyllard produced a wad of paper money stained by wet and perspiration he appeared quite willing to part with certain provisions. He was also told that no questions would be answered, and when he had given Wyllard supper the latter sculled away in the darkness leaving him none the wiser. Half an hour later the schooner slipped out to sea again.
The rest was by comparison easy. They had the coast of Alaska and British Columbia close aboard, and they crept southwards in fine weather, once running off their course when the smoke of a steamer crept up above the horizon. Then they ran for the northern tongue of Vancouver Island in a strong breeze of wind, and Wyllard, who had already decided that the vessel would scarcely fetch five hundred dollars and that it would be better if all trace of her disappeared, pulled his wheel over suddenly as she was scraping by a surf-swept reef.
In another minute she was on hard and fast, and they had scarcely got the boat over when the masts went with a crash. A quarter of an hour later they were thrown up on the beach, and before they set out on a long march through the bush there was very little to be seen of the vessel.
Three or four days afterwards they reached a little wooden town, and Wyllard, who slipped into it alone in the dusk, bought clothing for himself and his companions, who put it on in the bush. Then they went into the town together, and slept that night in a wooden hotel.
Their troubles were over, and, what was more, Wyllard, who pledged the rest to secrecy, fancied that what had become of the schooner would remain a mystery.